Join us for MLS Seminar featuring Dr. Matthew Blurton-Jones, Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at University of California, Irvine!
The Blurton-Jones lab is pioneering the next generation approaches to understand and treat neurodegenerative diseases. The lab uses human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), CRISPR engineering, and chimeric mouse models to examine the underlying molecular mechanisms that drive the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases. The lab previously developed one of the most widely adopted approaches to differentiate patient-derived iPSCs into microglia and they continue to use this approach to examine the impact of Alzheimer's Disease (AD risk genes on human microglia function. Current ongoing studies in the Blurton-Jones lab are combining iPSCs, CRISPR gene editing and chimeric modeling to examine the impact of AD-associated risk genes on human microglial functions and disease progression in vivo and to develop and to test novel microglial-based cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.